


Never Over

by marsmarzipan



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Author projecting onto Susie, Dead By Daylight Legion, Emotional Manipulation, F/F, Headcanon, Non-entity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:53:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27099157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marsmarzipan/pseuds/marsmarzipan
Summary: Susienne Mercier finds herself at odds with each and every one of her friends. Frank has fucked off to Calgary. Joey's nowhere to be found. Julie is being disagreeable as always. Susie tries to find solace and attempts to earn herself a normal life despite obvious post-traumatic stress, and finds absolutely no solace to be had when a party-goer begins to stalk her. How does he know where she lives?
Relationships: Julie/Susie (Dead by Daylight)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

A meditation break on a rainy night was split short by an icy drip down her back. She was inside, though, and the rain was nowhere to be found in the dormitory. Something washed over her like the dream she’d just left… a terrifying reality enveloped her, a fear to behold which she couldn’t even put her finger on. She stares out into the dark bedroom with no light to meet her eyes but the passing headlights out the window. She counted three in a span of a minute or so. She glanced wayside, where she knew the rest of the light hid. _1:46 AM_ reads the alarm clock just bedside. She blinks the blur out of her eyes, only just to leave them shut again.

 _Terror. Anger. Shame. Depression._ Like the four horsemen, the emotions that’d ruled her for years once more clouded her brain as she tried to swipe them away for good each night. She’d been doing breathing exercises to get the rage to quell. She’d been wearing more comfortable clothes to put the shame at bay. She’d been trying to smile to get the waves of sorrow to slow to some mirror-like sea. But she could never get rid of the terror… the freezing grip that she always met when she’d tried to do anything to better herself. The kick on the head that sent the rest of the horsemen right back into her castle. 

She’d drown. She’d catch fire. She’d freeze every single day as she tried to look just anybody- just one person in the eyes. She couldn’t. The fire took hold when she was around her fire, though… There was one person that could break the ice, even just for a moment. That’s all Susie really needed.

**But she’s gone.**

And suddenly, as if she’d never even closed her eyes, as if the pool wasn’t forming at her feet again, the alarm clock she’d just found herself staring at had gone off. It’s 8 in the morning. She’s still sitting up. Tears have dried themselves around the sides of her nose and the corners of her mouth, and the tip of her chin is still wet with them.

But Julie Kostenko was gone. Susie had fussed her out the door. “I want to go to school!” she pleaded. “I want my life to be normal!”

“We can be normal.” Julie said, cold as all of Susie’s other fears. “We’ve just got to make our place first.”

“It’s already not normal with you.” came sternly. “I can’t get the look in his eyes out of my head. Why’d you make me?”

“You know the deal, Soos.” Julie sighed.

“Do not ‘Soos’ me right now. Why did you make me kill him?”

Julie’s aloof lounge turned into an upright staredown. Susie instinctively looked clear away from Julie’s face… even if it used to be the only eyes she could meet. She thinks those days are gone now. She’s going to school. She’s going to be normal.

 _“We never speak of this again,”_ she mocked Frank’s voice. “Do you remember what he said? It’s the only good plot that egghead’s ever come up with. I didn’t want to kill him either, going in, you know.”

“Then why were you chanting with Frank and Joey?!” She was sobbing into her hands now, just to avoid eye contact.

“You’ve felt it. I know you’ve felt it. You get so red inside that you just start… doing. It’s not right. It’s not smart. I know it… but it happens. I played along with their dumbass game just to get the feeling again. Your hands tremble. Everything feels like a blur. It feels good.”

“Adrenaline is not an excuse.” Susie had calmed herself a little bit, but her head was still in her hands. She was peering out between her fingers. She felt safe peering out. She felt like she wasn’t being looked in at, even if she was. That’s what let her keep doing it- but that night, there was no mask to wear. Not yet.

“Says you. Seems like it’s the only thing keeping you together lately.” Julie’s eyes glazed over, even if she was still looking right at Susie’s. “You’re not who you used to be. We’re not who we used to be.”

“I know. That’s why I want some structure in my life again. Frank says he’s leaving in a couple of days, and Joey’s not shown his face or even called in a week and a half. Why do you still think it’s real?”

Julie leaned forward, eyes still glazed, and she grabbed both of her heavily-bandaged hands together. “Because it’s all _me._ ”

“Get out of my house.” Susie put her hands down and sat straight up. She knew her makeup was smudged, her hair must be matted like hell, and she’d probably still been slouching like a sloth, but the fire of **anger** broke through the ice of shame and terror. Julie tended to help that happen. She just didn’t see it coming back to her any day soon. 

“Get out?”

“Get out.” Susie stood up from her bed and realized she’d been speaking to the wall for fifteen minutes. It all melted away and it was grey in her room again, when moments before it’d been filled with such color and passion and… red. Had her eyes just been closed? No… there were so many tears on her face.

A car passed down the street again with a hiss and a splash of water. She could almost feel it hit her, this time. Icy water fell down her spine again.

Julie Kostenko was probably halfway to Toronto at this point. She’d been a planner. She’d come up with something on her own. Susie had school to do. They were reading Shakespearean literature in this segment… specifically _The Twelfth Night._ She’d loved the feelings and situations played out in Shakespeare, but she preferred to watch it on shaky VCR while a drunk player and three under-dressed players act out the parts, instead of reading it in a lecture hall with white light and the tak-tak of pens on paper throughout the whole room. She’d found it easier still, in her dorm, but she’d probably just watch a play absentmindedly and take the stupid test. 

She got up, frowning when she’d realized something else’d occupied her mind than the drum of sorrowful waves she’d grown too comfortable with… but no matter, her grades really did matter- just not enough to read Shakespearean.

“I hope our library has a tape on it.” she said aloud to nobody, yet the air held like a response was to be had, but was cut before it could make breath. She found her keys, put on some basketball shorts that never made it back to Frank, and ensured the sweater she was wearing was decently clean… enough. The library was in the wing just down the hall.

Ormond Community College was not a terribly big campus, though it was populous enough to warrant a dormitory to hold more than 500 students, so getting from place to place was simple enough. She liked going to the library anyway.

The checkerboard tile was a wicked contrast from the… frankly shitty, blue carpet that her dorm was floored with, but anywhere that wasn’t trying to be comfortable was checkered black and white. She looked straight down at the tiles. It’s like she was counting them to know where she was headed, even if it was just muscle memory.

Left out the door, and she was humming. She pulled her hood up to give her empty hands something to do, and abruptly after heard a door slam. It must’ve been her neighbors on their way into their own room, because no one else was in the hall with her now… even if she hadn’t noticed anyone before. She turned back around and kept going.

“Good morning, Mrs. Mercier.” said the librarian, not even needing to look to know who it was. “Here for some extra reading?”

“No… I’m here for a tape.”

“Any one in specific? Our selection isn’t vast…”

“Do we have any Shakespeare?” she said, which left a drop in the air… The librarian looked over and peered past the tops of her half-circle glasses, to meet eyes, even just for a moment. 

“Shakespeare, hmm? You’re not looking to skim something and just bull-crap your essay, are you?”

“No!” she let out a little too loud. “No. I need it to contrast against the original.” came quieter. “Get as many angles as I can, right?” she laughed. She’d been looking at the floor for way too long.

The librarian sighed. “You know where they are. Just don’t leave without checking it out. ‘Sides, I’m not sure we’ve got any plays on tape in here.”

All sound ceased. She felt the ice creep up her legs again. Were her shoes stupid? Did she smell bad? Was she doing anything right? She didn’t move. She just gripped her sleeves and stared at the floor.

“Everything alright?”

She swallowed spit hard and looked up at the librarian. “Yep! I’m okay.” She walked off into a random row of shelves, if only just for a couple of moments, before the woman sighed.

“Mercier. The tapes are on the other side of the library.”

“I know that!” she was shouting again. “I know. I need a book too.” 

She didn’t. She grabbed one anyway, at random. It was in the nonfiction section. It was a collage of articles, formatted in an ‘interesting happenings’ kind of piece. Strictly informative. Not Susie.

She strode over to the other side of the library, not with confidence, but with sheer aversion to maintaining line of sight of her from anyone else in the room. She made it to the single shelf of tapes… alphabetically sorted.  
**S.** No... not here. She crouched.  
**U.** Too far down the shelf.  
**T.** There. She found the start. _They Were Not Silent. The Thing. Tom Sawyer. Tsunamis, Natural Disasters. Tyler Sesseman’s_ -... Did somebody put their own tape in here?

 _Regardless,_ she thought, _Shit._ There were no _Twelfth Night_ tapes in here. She was shit out of luck. She stood up and shook herself to prepare to bring… this… to the librarian. She got a good look at it. “PSYCHOPATHS: SERIAL KILLERS UNSOLVED”... She let her hand flop to her side as she leaned face-first into the tapes. _Why, God?_

Moments had passed before she sucked it up and went to the desk. “Nothing _Twelfth Night,_ miss Brenda, but someone put their own tape in there. Are you sure they should be allowing that?”

“It’s sorted, isn’t it?”

“Yeah… I guess so?”

“Maybe somebody wants to see it. What’ve you got, let’s ring you up.”

She placed the big floppy book on the desk, right under the view of the lamp. “ _Psychopaths,_ ” Brenda read. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” she said, finding firmness in the fear of looking stupid. “It’s for something else I’m doing.”

“Whatever. Good luck with that essay,” she said, fixing her glasses as she began to copy the serial code into her Macintosh computer terminal to keep track of who had it, though she was sure not to forget anyway.

On the way back to her dorm, Susie held the book up to her chest, as to cover as much of it as she could with her sleeves. She fiddled with the keys in her pocket to unlock her dorm. She thumbed the key to her Grand Am, before switching to the only other key on the ring. The firm brass dorm key. It slid into the lock.

**Click.**

She placed the book on the coffee table in front of her couch and noted a faint smell of cigarettes, but it wafted away as soon as the door closed, and back to the mask of the lavender-scented candles she’d set to burn out, as they were nearing the end of their lives. She didn’t remember the hall smelling like cigarettes, but then again she didn’t really care to investigate.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Susie looks into the book titled Psychopaths

**Ghost Face Caught On Tape** was the first article to catch her eye. The Roseville Gazette was the paper that held it. She’d heard Frank and Julie offhandedly mention that name, the Ghost Face, before, but she’d never really put anything down to it. Needless to say, she was intrigued, as something that would catch Julie’s attention would probably have to be good. The article began, "In this footage, a dark figure is seen entering a house late at night in Northern Roseville, Florida. The police were called the next morning to report a murder in the area. Lock your doors: a Killer is in our midst, roaming freely, like a ghost in the night." The article was written by ‘Jed Olsen.’ 

She noticed that the book was the harbor of the cigarette smell. It made her face contort when she brought it closer to her eyes to read it, and only caught a nose-full of the awful, yet upsettingly charismatic, scent. She shook her head and placed the book on the coffee table without even minding to close it. She’d probably have to get back to it after it… aired out, or something. She couldn’t stand that smell. It smelled like her, and it smelled like him.  
Frank Morrison. Her mentor. The man who put the first knife in her hand. The man who taught her how to steal without looking back. To take what you need, and to take what your friends need too. He introduced the two of them, and they all ran together with a fella named Joe. Joey. Susie and Joey didn’t talk much, but it didn’t seem like they needed to. Whenever they were set in a room together while Frank and Julie were… fucking, or something, before they separated, Joey and Susie had some kind of unspoken understanding. Some kind of fraternity. They felt safe around one another, but didn’t feel the need to be buddy-buddy. Or at least, that’s what she thought.

Frank and Julie oft talked about the Ghost Face. Any true crime, really, was the topic of their conversation, especially after they separated. Julie’d realized that Susie wasn’t much for it, but still loved to gush about it with Frank. That was the most vulnerable she’d ever seen her. Not when they were making out. Not when they were… No. When Julie was talking about serial killers she fawned over. It was… an envy, she thinks. The envy to be known without being known.

While the idea of the Ghost Face hung in the air, still, she shut her eyes briefly. She hadn’t had breakfast. She needed coffee. She didn’t need to suddenly become obsessive with her ex-girlfriend’s favorite form of media. She-

Ring-ring…

The phone almost seemed to ring itself off of the wall. Who would call her so early in the morning? As she stood up, mostly by reflex, her soft footsteps creaked the floorboards under the carpet. The silence between the rings drilled these creaks so deep into her ears, that caused her body to rattle.

“Do you like scary movies?” asked an unfamiliar, heavy voice once she picked it up, silent. It sent a shock down her entire body, froze her in place like she’d just had a knife placed against her throat. She could not move… but she didn’t need to. “Ha-ha, I’m fuckin’ with you.” said the voice. “It’s Steve, your neighbor. I saw you comin’ in with that book and had a great idea. I wanted to stop you in the hall, but, ya’know. Nothing like a good scare.”

“Why would you do that to me!?” her posture changed dramatically, as she grabbed the phone with both of her hands, and seemed to shake the rest of her body. “What do you want?”

“Was askin’ if you could come to that party down in Fairview. It’s a big one.”

“Why would I drive an hour to get to a party?” she asked, standing straight up again.

“It’s gonna last a whole day, don’t even worry about the time,” he said, before yawning. “Do you wanna go?”

“All day? I have schoolwork to do, Steve.”

“I know, I know. I can help you bullshit that Shakespeare shit, you’ve just gotta ask.”

“Would you do it for me if I didn’t go to the party?”

“I need a ride.”

“Of course you do. Why would you invite me if you didn’t? When is it?” she leaned her shoulder up against the wall aside the phone base, and took it’s wire in her fingers, to fuss with it. She was still nervous, heart still racing, even if Steve was one of her… ‘normal,’ friends. The kind that asks for rides to parties and if you can buy alcohol for them. 

“It’s tomorrow. We can just leave after class or something.”

“You’ll have to catch me on the way back to my dorm, because if you don’t, I’ll be in here working on that Shakespeare shit, and I won’t take my headphones off to listen for knocks to my door.”

“Alright, Soos, I’ll see you then.”

“See ya.”

She hung the phone up, yet stood still in front of it. She played with the seams of her shirt. She stared at the wall for what seemed to be forever, before turning around, sitting back on the couch, and glancing again at the book.

The page’d turned, and it read further into the Ghost Face. A digest article must’ve followed the original one. “One of the most famous, most copied serial killers of the modern era,” she read, lounged in her couch. She looked up at the exhaust vent on the ceiling. It turned the page again. She let out a breath that she had been holding since she hung the phone up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm very sorry that it took nearly three months for this shitty little chapter to come out. i'll do better.


End file.
